Online Pirates set to receive larger sentences under new proposals

Proposals from the Intellectual Property Office and the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills have called for commercial infringement of copyright to be punishable by a ten year prision sentence, instead of the current two year maximum.

Online Pirates set to recieve larger sentences under new proposals filmfoto

The aim of the proposals is to make the penalties from both online offences and large scale copyright infringement of physical goods equivalent. The current maximum sentence for commerical infringement of copyright is two years and is dealt with under the Copyright Designs and Patents Act of 1988.

Greater protections

Baroness Neville-Rolfe, the UK intellectual property minister, commented: 'The government takes copyright crime extremely seriously – it hurts businesses, consumers and the wider economy both on and offline. Our creative industries are worth more than £7bn to the UK economy and it’s important to protect them from online criminal enterprises.' She added: 'By toughening penalties for commercial-scale online offending we are offering greater protections to businesses and sending a clear message to deter criminals.' Source: The Guardian

Covington & Burling LLP is an international law firm with over 850 lawyers across ten offices in Asia, Europe and the United States. In an increasingly regulated world, we have an exceptional ability to navigate clients through their most complex...